UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the International Criminal Court Prosecutor: Investigate the Possibility that Israel is Committing the Crime of Genocide Against the Palestinian People

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Egypt called on Zamalek Club to cancel its contract with Puma Sportswear, because of the brand’s cooperation with the Israeli occupation… “We understand that you may not have been aware of the extent of the company’s support of the genocide…”

We will show our solidarity with all those who are in the dark and cold because of an inhuman siege, while our cities are illuminated. And together we will send a strong message to our leaders who are complicit in a deadly blockade that starves, despairs and slowly kills two million women, men and children.

How can we accept such a genocide in the 21st century? Total imprisonment for more than 10 years, imposed by Israel with the complicity of Egypt, bombing, deprivation of drugs, drinking water and electricity.

The challenge is huge; Scottish and UK weapons continue to flow to the Israeli military. As with any other settler-colonial project, extreme violence and a tendency to genocide is built-in to Zionism. The Egyptian dictatorship matches its Israeli ally in brutality, preventing Palestinians from escaping the Gaza concentration zone. Only a united and determined campaign linking and organising across Scotland, the UK and internationally can hope to defeat Israel’s genocidal plans. SPSC aims to play its part in building it. Join us in that endeavour.

The international community must assume its responsibilities regarding the Zionist occupation of West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem al-Quds and call for an immediate end to the systematic punishment, land expropriation, home demolitions and slow genocide.

Instead of branding Hamas as a “terrorist” group, Egyptian government officials, likewise, must lift the criminal blockade and publicly and unequivocally demand the immediate and unilateral withdrawal of all Zionist military forces from the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 as well as the dismantlement of all illegal settlements. As a Muslim nation, it’s the least they could do.

Lemkin and the UN convention’s drafters understood that genocide did not require death camps; it could also be achieved gradually through intentional and systematic abuse and neglect. Their definition raises troubling questions about Israel’s treatment of Gaza, aside from military attacks. Does, for example, forcing the enclave’s two million inhabitants to depend on aquifers polluted with sea water constitute genocide?..

And what to make of a plan just disclosed by the Israeli media indicating that Netanyahu and his allies have been secretly plotting to force many Palestinians into Sinai, with the US arm-twisting the Egyptians into agreement? If true, the bombing campaigns of the past six years may be better understood as softening-up operations before a mass expulsion from Gaza. Such a policy would certainly satisfy Lemkin’s definition of genocide.

Lets not mince words. Israelis are committing genocide in Gaza. But the United Nations is loath to use the “G” word and it us using the “C” (condemn) word instead. Why? Money talks. The top financier of the United Nations is America with a whopping 22.00% in direct funds (followed by Japan 10.83%, Germany 7.14%, France 5.59%, and GB 5.18%), if the United Nations called out the genocide in Gaza, its top financier would have to be punished for its complicity.

According to Article 3 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, persons committing genocide or complicity in genocide shall be punished “whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.” The United States not only supports and funds the ongoing genocide in Gaza, replenishes Israel with more funds and weaponry, but it also uses its political clout to enable Israel to continue its ruthless crimes against humanity…

The American government is not alone in its complicity in genocide or in its incitement. Mainstream media networks and commentators who paint a picture of an Israel “self-defense” to give room to the continued genocide are complicit and must be punished. But in the opinion of this writer, the vilest partners in this crime are the Egyptian and Saudi leaders committing fratricide.

Egypt’s military coup leader and the illegitimate president of Egypt, al-Sisi, whom the Israel ambassador called a ‘hero for all Jews’ , has trapped the Gazans so that Israel can eliminate them all. Genocide will prove to be lucrative business for the Egyptians…

The Grand Imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the highest seat of learning in the Muslim world, denounced an ongoing Israeli onslaught in the Gaza Strip as an “act of genocide against the armless Palestinian people”.

In a Saturday statement, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb condemned Israel’s “heinous crimes” in the Gaza Strip and urged the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation as well as the United Nations to “immediately act to stop this aggression.”

Shukr further warned that Gaza is now facing a “genocidal war,” adding that “the council is about to issue a press statement condemning the attacks on Gaza which were officially initiated by the Israeli military.” Shukr called on the Egyptian government to counter this vicious attack on unarmed civilians in the Gaza Strip.